She still couldn’t move. She couldn’t lift her arms, turn her head, nothing. She would be shaking, but she didn’t even have that range of movement. Her heart was thumping so loudly in her ears she missed part of the conversation. Panic was welling up in her chest. She wasn’t claustrophobic—but being unable to control her own body was something new entirely. “Please,” she whimpered. “Please stop…” She felt lightheaded.
I think I’m going to pass out. I never thought I was the passing out type.
Here we are, though, twice in one day.
Huh.
Simon’s grasp on her was harsh and reeked of ownership. Like she was a toy and Ringmaster was threatening to take her away from him. She felt like an object on a shelf. She felt less than human. She also felt like she was strapped into a rollercoaster and watching a solid wall come rushing toward her. Unconsciousness was probably better than this. Sure, why not.
Something loud snapped her out of the sinking tunnel that she was drifting into. Something that split the air like a gunshot.
Crack!
Cora collapsed to the ground in a heap.
13
Everything was a blur. The last thing she knew, she had been about to pass out. Simon had her trapped with magic strings. Magic was real, and that was something she couldn’t quite accept. Her mind kept skipping over that fact again and again like a broken record.
This can’t be real.
This can’t be real.
This can’t be real.
But it was.
She had seen too much to do anything other than accept the fact that either it was real, or she had lost her mind and was now hallucinating the entire world around her. Right now, she felt detached enough to believe it was the latter.
Cora never figured herself as one for suffering panic attacks, but the events of the day were proving otherwise. Apparently, she just never had anything worth having a panic attack about. Strange disappearing photos on her camera, Trent being threatened by a man-eating murder-circus, a bloody apparition of herself in a mirror…and magical strings controlling her movements.
Check, please.
But then, something had split the air, deafening and loud, and the ground had rushed up to meet her. Her head was spinning, and she felt both hot and cold at the same time. She was struggling to catch her breath. People were shouting, and someone was on the ground near her, a heap of red fabric. A heap of angry red fabric.
Simon. He was swearing and cursing about something, but she couldn’t really make out his words. He had a hand pressed to the right side of his face.
Her fingers touched something unexpected on the packed dirt. Something small, and metal, and delicate. They were a pair of circular, antique sunglasses. One lens was tinted red, the other black. She gently took them into her palm and held them. She didn’t know why. It was an impulse. Something about her mind struggling for anything to grasp onto. Anything at all.
Hands on her arms plucked her up from the ground, and the world was moving again. She nearly toppled over a second time, but someone held her steady. She blinked, trying to straighten out her vision.
She slipped the glasses in her pocket. She really didn’t know why. In the back of her head, she just didn’t want them to get stepped on and broken. It was a weird reflex, but she couldn’t really argue with it at the moment.
She looked up at the concerned face of Jack as he pulled her away from whatever was happening. There was more shouting going on behind her. When he brought her to a nearby wooden storage box and sat her down, she could finally make some sense of what was going on.
“She is mine!” Simon howled. He was on his knees, shouting up at the imposing man in the green and gold striped tailcoat. The right half of the Puppeteer’s face was a mask of blood. He might have even lost his eye. He had a hand pressed to the socket, and the crimson that was flowing from him stained the red of his clothing an even darker color. “You have no right to intervene—”
“I’m in charge. Therefore, I have every right,” Ringmaster snarled. His long leather whip was snaked around behind him. As he moved the handle, it jerked around so quickly it was almost like a living thing.
Simon began to push to his feet, but Ringmaster was having none of it. He swung the bullwhip over his head. Crack!
That was the noise she had heard.
“Stay on your knees, Puppeteer, or you’ll stagger back to your boxcar with both your eyes missing.” Ringmaster flicked his wrist and caught the tip of whip in his hand as it came up to meet him, creating a loop. He decked Simon across the face with it, rocking the other man’s head back with the blow.
Simon spat blood onto the ground. But he stayed on his knees. “She’s mine, Ringmaster. Not yours. Not anyone else’s. Not the Faire’s. Mine.”
“The agreement was that you could have her if you could convince her. I don’t see a woman who was ready to be turned to one of your abominations, Simon. Have you even told her the cost of your games?”
“We were about to begin broaching the subject when you interrupted.”
She felt like a passerby. Like she was watching a movie, not in it.
“Liar!” Jack interjected. “You weren’t going to explain shit, and you know it.” Jack was still standing at her side, a reassuring hand on her shoulder. He turned to look down at her. “Cora? Why was he bringing you here?”
“Don’t tell them anything, Cora. Don’t trust them!” Simon moved to get up on his feet, but Ringmaster wouldn’t allow it. He pulled back the handle of the bullwhip and smashed the Puppeteer in the face with it, knocking him back flat to the ground with a thump. When Simon removed his hand to catch himself, she saw the whole right side of his face was a massive gash from his chin to his forehead. The wound had clearly been put there by the first swing of the bullwhip. She turned her head away from the gore. She might have seen bone.
“Trust? That’s rich coming from you, traitor.” Aaron shot the words over his shoulder as he moved to stand by her. He knelt at her feet, looking up at her with nothing but pity and sincerity. “It’s okay, Cora. You can tell us.”
“Traitor?” Simon laughed and shuffled back to his knees, putting his hand back over the slash on his face. “And how am I that? Is this still about your lover? Is this still about Hernandez?” He sighed dramatically. “For the last time, he came to me. He wanted all this to stop. He needed the pain to end. And he knew I could help him. I’m sorry your constant humping wasn’t enough to console him.” Even through the obvious pain he was in, Simon grinned. His teeth were stained red. He looked to her with his one remaining bizarrely colored eye. “Tell them nothing, Cora. Nothing at all. If you think you are in danger from me—you know nothing about what they’re capable of.”
“I…” She felt so small. She was so sore. She was so tired. “I just want to go home, please.”
Aaron picked up her hand and gently held it between his. “You’re safe. We’re not going to hurt you. Don’t listen to anything he says. He’s a liar, a cheat, and a manipulator. I know it’s easy to believe he’s a friend, but he’s only ever looking out for himself. He wants something from you. You heard him—insisting you belong to him. You don’t. Don’t fall into his web.”